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Letter: The true meaning of Christmas

Fourteen days from today is Christmas.

People will be searching frantically for perfect gifts for everyone on their list. It is natural for us to want the best we can afford for our loved ones. Unfortunately, the day after Christmas many people will be in debt hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

I can well remember being a child during the Great Depression. Gifts during those years were gifts we made for family members or for close neighbors. They were gifts such as homemade jellies from wild plums and berries or even a few eggs the chickens laid.

There was no money for non-essentials in the 1930s. Our family was blessed to have dinner together and for small gifts we made for one another.

My most memorable holiday was the year I wished we could have a Christmas tree. My brothers gathered leftover evergreen limbs from a sold out tree stand on Christmas Eve then tied them closely around a broom stick anchored in a bucket of rocks. What fun we had decorating it with popcorn strings and colored paper chains and ornaments. We thought it was the most beautiful Christmas tree we had ever seen. It even smelled like a fresh cut pipe tree.

I do not think people should feel pressured to spend beyond their means. Every family’s situation is different. Buy gifts — especially for the children in your family or for others who are needy. Stay within your budget! Christmas is a religious holiday, not an outlandish spending spree.